With the development of computer graphics technologies in recent years, image data to be output from information processing apparatuses such as mainframe computers, personal computers, and game consoles are becoming complex and sophisticated. These information processing apparatuses have now implemented a graphic processor dedicated to image processing, aside from their main processors for performing ordinary processing, so that the main processors are released from performing the image processing to resolve system overhead.
In order for these information processing apparatuses to achieve high-performance processing, it is useful for their main processors to be multiprocessors. In a multiprocessor, a plurality of tasks is assigned to respective processors for parallel processing, providing an increase in the operation speed. At the same time, the graphic processor must perform image processing at a speed corresponding to the speed at which the plurality of tasks are processed by the main processor, so as to correspond to the high-speed operation of the main processor.